What Is Racism?

There is surely no nation in the world that holds "racism" in greater horror than does the United States. Compared to other kinds of offenses, it is thought to be somehow more reprehensible. The press and public have become so used to tales of murder, rape, robbery, and arson, that any but the most spectacular crimes are shrugged off as part of the inevitable texture of American life. "Racism" is never shrugged off. For example, when a white Georgetown Law School student reported earlier this year that black students are not as qualified as white students, it set off a booming, national controversy about "racism." If the student had merely murdered someone he would have attracted far less attention and criticism.

Racism is, indeed, the national obsession. Universities are on full alert for it, newspapers and politicians denounce it, churches preach against it, America is said to be racked with it, but just what is racism?

Dictionaries are not much help in understanding what is meant by the word. They usually define it as the belief that one's own ethnic stock is superior to others, or as the belief that culture and behavior are rooted in race. When Americans speak of racism they mean a great deal more than this. Nevertheless, the dictionary definition of racism is a clue to understanding what Americans do mean. A peculiarly American meaning derives from the current dogma that all ethnic stocks are equal. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, all races have been declared to be equally talented and hard- working, and anyone who questions the dogma is thought to be not merely wrong but evil.

The dogma has logical consequences that are profoundly important. If blacks, for example, are equal to whites in every way, what accounts for their poverty, criminality, and dissipation? Since any theory of racial differences has been outlawed, the only possible explanation for black failure is white racism. And since blacks are markedly poor, crime-prone, and dissipated, America must be racked with pervasive racism. Nothing else could be keeping them in such an abject state.

All public discourse on race today is locked into this rigid logic. Any explanation for black failure that does not depend on white wickedness threatens to veer off into the forbidden territory of racial differences. Thus, even if today's whites can find in their hearts no desire to oppress blacks, yesterday's whites must have oppressed them. If whites do not consciously oppress blacks, they must oppress them Unconsciously. If no obviously racist individuals can be identified, then societal institutions must be racist. Or, since blacks are failing so terribly in America, there simply must be millions of white people we do not know about, who are working day and night to keep blacks in misery. The dogma of racial equality leaves no room for an explanation of black failure that is not, in some fashion, an indictment of white people.

"Black pride" is said to be a wonderful and worthy thing, but anything that could be construed as an expression of white pride is a form of hatred. It is perfectly natural for third-world immigrants to expect school instruction and driver's tests in their own languages, whereas for native Americans to ask them to learn English is racist.

Blatant anti-white prejudice, in the form of affirmative action, is now the law of the land. Anything remotely like affirmative action, if practiced in favor of whites, would be attacked as despicable favoritism.

All across the country, black, Hispanic, and Asian clubs and caucuses are thought to be fine expressions of ethnic solidarity, but any club or association expressly for whites is by definition racist. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) campaigns openly for black advantage but is a respected "civil rights" organization. The National Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP) campaigns merely for equal treatment of all races, but is said to be viciously racist.

At a few college campuses, students opposed to affirmative action have set up student unions for whites, analogous to those for blacks, Hispanics, etc, and have been roundly condemned as racists. Recently, when the white students at Lowell High School in San Francisco found themselves to be a minority, they asked for a racially exclusive club like the ones that non- whites have. They were turned down in horror. Indeed, in America today, any club not specifically formed to be a white enclave but whose members simply happen all to be white is branded as racist.

Today, one of the favorite slogans that define the asymmetric quality of American racism is "celebration of diversity." It has begun to dawn on a few people that "diversity" is always achieved at the expense of whites (and sometimes men), and never the other way around. No one proposes that Howard University be made more diverse by admitting whites, Hispanics, or Asians. No one ever suggests that National Hispanic University in San Jose (CA) would benefit from the diversity of having non-Hispanics on campus. No one suggests that the Black Congressional Caucus or the executive ranks of the NAACP or the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund suffer from a lack of diversity. Somehow, it is perfectly legitimate for them to celebrate homogeneity. And yet any all-white group – a company, a town, a school, a club, a neighborhood – is thought to suffer from a crippling lack of diversity that must be remedied as quickly as possible. Only when whites have been reduced to a minority has "diversity" been achieved.